haven't you noticed

[starseedling]

Who: Steven, Peridot, Lex, and potentially YOU!
When: Second half of May.
Where: The Haven, the Outskirts, the Outer City.
What: Steven plays music for the poor saps outside of the Bright Wall, explores the city, and also does some other things. Faerie traits begin to manifest. Sleep is disrupted. Includes some closed top levels, but also open stuff!
Warnings: Pop music.

★BUSKING PRO BONO (MAY 20+)

Power or no powers, if there's one thing Steven can bring to the table, it's the magic of music. Specifically, he's volunteered to lend his skills to the Outer City in the form of entertainment, playing his ukulele and singing his heart out while other people do tasks that could be considered more critical.

Not in his opinion, though. These people need food, and healing, and protection, but they clearly also need something to brighten their spirits. Unfortunately, his brand of otherworldly music may not be all their familiar to their ears.

Not quite comfortable enough to break out some of his newer creations, Steven has been running through a long list of Earth-based musical covers. Currently, he is performing a spirited rendition of Haven't you Noticed (I'm a Star), which seems to be drawing an equal mixture of interest and bafflement from the locals. He may have to fine-tune his set list in the future.

"Haven't you noticed that I'm a star?
I'm coming into view as the world is turning
Haven't you noticed I've made it this far?
Now everyone can see me burning~"

He finishes with a dramatic flourish, only now really turning his attention to the uncertain audience. Hm. Tough crowd. Maybe it doesn't help that after the recent full moon, he'll have developed the beginnings of glittery scales around his neck and shoulders, as well as to pink dots on his forehead that are clearly destined to be antenna.

★JUST STRAIGHT UP BUSKING (MAY 20+)

Beyond charity work, Steven can also be found around Aefenglom proper, playing music for pocket change. He can be found in a large variety of places, still playing mostly modern Earth music as well as a couple he's written himself. He's also using this as an opportunity to explore the city, now that he's feeling a bit better than when he arrived.

Also, his big pink lion is with him, playing chaperone and also giving Steven a ride. While Steven plays, Lion will happily nap nearby - though maybe that's not the best way to attract donars.

Comments

★CLOSED TO PERIDOT (FULL MOON)

[starseedling]

At some point during the night of the full moon, things start getting more excitable. The deeper into the night it gets, the more wired Steven feels, and when it comes down to it, he can't really remember the circumstances of going to sleep. Only that things were kind of weird, and at once point he presumably ended up in bed.

It turns out that Peridot was also in bed, because as Steven gradually finds himself stirring in the pre-sunrise hours, he's snuggled up close against her. It's actually pretty nice to wake up to, the strange energy of the night before making him feel extra disorientate and sleepy.

He doesn't quite notice any of the other changes, or the thin glittery powder he's left on the bedsheets - and all over Peridot.

[alienwear]

It could be that the reason he's stirring is because Peridot is. Sleeping off the odd feeling she'd laid down with turns out to be a bust; she's awake again now, groggy and just as tense as before.

She staggers to her feet, a hand on her forehead, letting Steven slump over into the spot where she was just laying. She fails to notice the glitter for now; she's too preoccupied with the dull but persistent pain that is currently surrounding her gem.

[starseedling]

Steven mumbles sleepily as Peridot gets up, taking a moment before his eyes flutter open. It's still dark out, he notes, though his own eyes cast a glimmer across the bed. They're glowing.

He's slept off a bit of the brain fuzz he'd been feeling before, but his drowsiness makes up for it. He shifts more obviously, getting ready to go after her if need be.

"Peridot...?" he asks. He sounds a bit like he wants her to come back to bed mostly because the cuddling they were just doing was pretty sweet.

[alienwear]

"IIII... I don't... Feel right," Peridot creaks, waving him off weakly. She breaks off there, sucking in a breath, exclaiming wordlessly in confusion and alarm as something hard jabs the hand she has to her forehead. The poke is accompanied by another stab of pain from her head. She has never felt anything like this before, and though the the pain is more just annoying rather than agonizing, the unfamiliarity triggers an anxiety in her that strikes her right through the gut.

[starseedling]

Steven is confused, to say the least. Maybe more moon stuff is happening? He starts to sit up more completely, wondering if she's hurt, somehow. He pushes towards the side of the bed she left from.

"Wait - what happened? Are you okay?" Peridot is not necessarily known for being restrained about her whining, but he's concerned regardless.

[alienwear]

"No! I-- Steven, I think--"

Unbidden, her mind returns to a conversation she had with Iramaat a few weeks ago, and her metaphorical blood runs cold as she draws a conclusion from that. She turns to look at Steven, eyes as big as saucers. She gulps.

"I think I might be dying!"

She is completely unaware of the nubs of horns that have appeared on either side of her gem.

[starseedling]

"What? Why?!"

Steven springs up onto his knees, and panicked as she is. Through it, he only sort of notices her horns, pausing his terror to squint at them uncertainly. He looks at her in confusion and dread.

"...Whuh...?"

[alienwear]

His dread is mirrored on Peridot's face, as the changes he has undergone finally register properly. She yelps and points a shaky finger at him.

"The disease-- It's spreading! What have I done, I've doomed you to the same fate!"

[starseedling]

"What are you talking about?" he yelps, looking down at himself in confusion. It's hard to see the glow of his own eyes, but he can see the light they cast down on his hands - showing off traces of sparkles.

"Peridot... You have horns?" he asks, completely baffled.

[alienwear]

The word "horns" does something to distract her from her panic. The frightened expression on her face lessens, her brow furrows. She reaches up and feels them; these odd nubs poking out of her forehead.

"...What is HAPPENING," she yelps loudly, casting about for something reflective to get a look at herself in.

[starseedling]

Steven settles into his butt, the answers slowly starting to become clear to him. He'd already kind of understood what was happening before he ever went to sleep. Maybe he just hadn't wanted to believe that it would happen to both of them.

"It's... the mutations," he says, clumsily. "People on the internet... they were saying how they were changing. Like, they were turning into monsters." He folds his arms around himself. "It's why we don't have magic."

[alienwear]

Well that's not... great news, but honestly it's an improvement over dying? He's right though. She remembers hearing the same thing. She deflates, shoulders sagging.

"Great. Of course I would start getting mutations after we leave our world, where we just figured out how to cure them," she spits irritably. She's found a mirror on the wall but it's... too small. And too high up. For her to reach it. As if she needed the extra frustration right now.

[starseedling]

"It's different than that, at least," he says. "My brain feels fine! Um. I think..."

The monsters that live in the city seem to be fine enough people, so they probably aren't going insane. As far as he understands anyway. He rubs his neck, traces of glittery scales coming off in his palm.

"Did all this sparkly stuff come off me?"

[alienwear]

"Well it definitely didn't come off me," Peridot replies, pausing in the process of grabbing a nearby chair to stand on to glance at her wrist, as if to confirm. "I should have prepared for this eventuality. I should have done more research..."

[starseedling]

"I dunno how much difference it would have made," Steven says, shrugging a shoulder helplessly. "This is a really new thing for everybody..."

Then, he perks up, doing his best to focus. He feels his forehead, where two tiny antennae buds seem to be forming.

"But! Now maybe you can figure out what you're turning into! I guess... I'm gunna be a fae now? Or something. It was like that in the dream, too..."

[alienwear]

"Hhhhhhhh," Peridot creaks dispiritedly. She's trying to go along with his optimistic train of thought here, but her condition feels a lot more difficult to nail down.

"In the dream, I think I recall I had some kind of... tail," she supplies, putting an emphasis of contempt on the last word that leaves it hanging in the air. "I'm pretty sure half the varieties of monsters in this stupid city have tails and/or horns."

[starseedling]

"Yeah, I guess so..." Steven says with a thoughtful frown. He wishes he'd encountered her in the dream, so that he'd have more to offer. "What kind of tail was it? Like... scales, or fur, or what?"

Admittedly, the idea of her having a tail is mostly cute to him, despite her contempt, so he finds himself smiling just a little at the thought of it.

[alienwear]

"Ummmm... It had a pointy barb. Thing. On the end of it. That's about all I remember," she supplies, fortunately missing Steven's smile because she is finally getting up on that chair to get a look at herself in the mirror.

She blinks at her own reflection with a frown. Those sure are tiny little horns right at her hairline! She makes a face, prodding at them experimentally...

[starseedling]

He smacks his fist into his palm.

"Maybe you're a manticore! They can have horns and a scorpion tail, right?"

He mostly learned that from fantasy novels.

[alienwear]

"A manticore," Peridot repeats thoughtfully, having never heard the word before. "Is that a kind of monster that they have here in Aefenglom?"

[starseedling]

"Yeah - they're also a thing on Earth, but not in a really... real way. They're just something they write about in stories."

He tries to remember.

"I think manticores are like... a lion, and a goat, and a scorpion, all mixed together. They call that a 'chimera' here."

[alienwear]

Peridot pauses to consider this information.

"...I think I know what two out of three of those things are," she admits. Obviously she knows what a lion is. She's pretty sure she's heard of goats before? But a scorpion. What in the heck is a scorpion?

[starseedling]

"A goat is a little hooved guy with horns that they can use to ram into stuff," he explains. It's easier doing this than thinking too hard about the fact that he has scales now. "A scorpion is, like... you've seen crabs on the beach before? It's sort of like that, except they have a tail with a poison stinger on the end!"

Scorpions are super scary but very cool.

[alienwear]

She listens attentively to his explanation. There's still a vague look of worry on her face that she doesn't seem ready to shed just yet, but that's an improvement over completely losing her shit at least.

"Uhhhh....hhhhuhhhhh..." Peridot creaks out finally. Perhaps she needs some time to let this sink, in before she can reassess how she feels about it. "So that explains me. What the heck are you turning into, then?"

[starseedling]

Don't worry Peridot, Steven is basically just putting off self-analysis by focusing on you. So when she turns it around to him, he immediately looks self-conscious, and at least a little ashamed.

"Um... I think... I think I'm becoming a fae," he says, quietly. He crosses his arms around him, and then flops back down onto the bed, looking defeated.